


i should have been a pair of ragged claws

by crescentmoonthemage



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben Solo is a rebel, Emperor Hux, M/M, Pre-Star Wars the Force Awakens, Rebel Scum Ren, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9933272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentmoonthemage/pseuds/crescentmoonthemage
Summary: “Dear, dear, General,” mocks Ben. “You’re not looking so good.”“What did you expect?” growls Hux. “I’m the sole prisoner of one of the most notorious shit piles of rebel scum ever to shove his face above the dirt. Before that, I was stranded on Kathna, surrounded by banthas, tin can pod racers, and dysfunctional droids!”Ben Solo gives Hux a wicked grin. He continues fixing his unruly mess of hair, and Hux fixes in on the dark strands contrasting against Ben’s pale, slender fingers. “Oh, sweetheart,” says Ben, voice dripping with sarcasm and mock sympathy. “I may be scum, but who ever said I was a rebel?”Or, the one where Ben Solo is a rebel and takes General Hux prisoner. An alternate Kylo Ren origin story with some slow burn Kylux and Emperor Hux much, much later. Pre Star-Wars the Force Awakens





	1. part one--first

**Author's Note:**

> I decided I wanted a long story, despite having no, no, no time for it :) Updates will not be periodic, but should be once or more a month. Enjoy!!
> 
> \--CM

 

Part One

The famed  _ Millennium Falcon _ is, above all else, a remarkably dirty and underwhelming ship-- at least when seen in the eyes of a prisoner. The ropes chafe Hux’s hands, and much as he struggles to get free, he is bound fast, back ramrod-straight against an old chair. He slumps forward as much as the restraints will allow, matted ginger hair falling into his eyes and half-blocking his view of a greasy table set up for holochess.  _ Kriffing _ .  _ Hell _ . 

Footsteps alert him, and he looks up, giving a valiant effort to sweep his unwashed hair from his face with no hands. It doesn’t work, but the other inhabitant of the  _ Falcon _ does it for him, slender fingers in his hair, roughly pushing it out of the way. Hux blinks, considers, and spits in the face of the other. Laughter emanates, deep and throaty, and Hux watches through lidded eyes as Ben Solo steps back. His dark hair is in a messy bun and Hux absurdly notices as Ben fiddles with it, tucking the loose strands of hair behind his big ears, umber eyes showing flickers of amusement. 

“Dear, dear, General,” mocks Ben. “You’re not looking so good.”

“What did you expect?” growls Hux. “I’m the sole prisoner of one of the most notorious shit piles of rebel scum ever to shove his face above the dirt. Before that, I was stranded on Kathna, surrounded by banthas, tin can pod racers, and dysfunctional droids!”

Ben Solo gives Hux a wicked grin. He continues fixing his unruly mess of hair, and Hux fixes in on the dark strands contrasting against Ben’s pale, slender fingers. “Oh, sweetheart,” says Ben, voice dripping with sarcasm and mock sympathy. “I may be scum, but who ever said I was a rebel?”

 

\-----

 

The summons had come early. He’s barely out of the ‘fresher after his customary hour or so of sleep when his data pad buzzes. An encrypted message flashes across the screen.  _ I require your presence in my audience chamber at once. _

It’s a shame that he has to forego the caf bubbling in the pot, but orders are orders. Draping his heavy greatcoat over his shoulders, Hux stalks off to see Snoke.

“You are to come to me in person,” says the hologram of Snoke. “I have a task for you-- much too great for your little brain to handle over hologram.”

Hux bristles but doesn’t show anything. “Yes, Supreme Leader. It would be my honor.”

Snoke nods, regarding Hux with a demeaning glance. “I will transmit the coordinates to you. You will leave the Finalizer in the command of Lieutenant Mitaka and take a disguised  _ Upsilon _ class shuttle with twenty troopers. Level eighteen security. Report to me in two weeks.”

Hux inclines his head, once, curtly. “Yes, Supreme Leader.” He waits for half an instant, as he always does, to see if Snoke has anything more to say. As always, Snoke remains silent. Hux whirls around to stalk out. 

Getting Phasma on the line, they select a contingent of troopers within the hour and employ six people to repaint the shuttle. When he tells Mitaka that he’ll have command for the next month, the young Lieutenant blanches visibly, but manages to nod and squeak out a “Thank you, General,” before snapping a crisp salute. 

He’s watching the Finalizer fade from the tinted windows on the  _ Upsilon  _ shuttle within an hour. It smells obnoxiously like wet paint. He still hasn’t had his cup of caf. 

 

If Mitaka hasn’t blown anything up by the time he returns, Hux will count it as a victory. 

  
  


\-----

 

The trip starts to go downhill on the fifth day. Snoke has ordered Hux to take the journey in a series of twenty-seven jumps through lightspeed in order to arrive in a carefully calculated time of thirteen days and four hours. They’re in the middle of the seventh jump when the  _ Upsilon _ -class shuttle heaves, shudders, and falls out of lightspeed. Hux, leaning against one of the inner walls and tapping out a message on his data pad, is thrown unceremoniously across the ship, crashing against the opposite wall before crumpling in a heap to the ground. The other troopers around him have suffered much the same fate, though this does not make Hux feel any better. Pushing a hand through his newly unregulation hair to smooth it back to something more proper, he stands as gracefully as he can. One of his knees pops rather loudly and he winches, aching from the fall. In a step he’s in the cockpit, voice cool and angry. “What the  _ fuck  _ was that, Commander?” 

The pilot trooper’s helmet is sitting on the dash and he’s scrubbing nervous hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, General. I don’t know what happened. One minute we were fine and the next minute we weren’t. We’ll have to land on that nearby planetoid to diagnose the issue.”

“Did you properly inspect the ship before takeoff?” asks Hux.

The trooper shakes his head. “You requested we leave within an hour, sir. There was no time.”

“You should have made time,” says Hux, crossing his arms. “What are you? Head of a squadron?” 

The trooper looks confused, but puffs out his chest anyway. “Yes, sir. Head of the 341st.”

Hux flicks his wrist, mind already off the issue and into diagnostics or contacting Snoke or getting someone with any measurable amount of  _ skill _ to fix his ship. “Not any more. Land us, pick someone more competent to lead, then  _ get off my ship.  _ And put on your damn helmet. You’ll be finding your own way back to the Finalizer. _ ”  _

The trooper swallows, looking crestfallen, but pulls a salute out of somewhere. For the millionth time, Hux is glad of his programming methods. “Yes, sir.”

 

\-----

 

The planetoid name is Kathna, and it is a colossal shit pile of desert. Not First Order controlled, (sadly, thinks Hux.  _ It would be so easy to take over _ …) it is run by rival gangs and factions all warring over Kathna Lake, the planet’s only source of water. All this Hux finds out in the main spaceport. The new squadron commander requests that Hux not go anywhere unprotected, but Hux waves him away with a cursory hand. “If you waste people following me around, you’ll never diagnose what’s wrong with my ship.”

This is how Hux ends up in a seedy bar, drinking a hellishly expensive glass of Corellian whisky and feeling angry stares all around him. He had the sense to put on civilian clothing before leaving the shuttle, but what he’s wearing is still light-years nicer than anything else in thit shithole of a settlement.

He’s about halfway through his second whisky and thinking about nothing when the empty stool beside him creaks. Glancing over, Hux lays eyes on a man not much younger than himself with long dark hair and a grimy brown coat. It’s a vest, really, and Hux notices absurdly that while the coat once had sleeves, they had long since been torn off. 

The young man orders a brandy and slides credits across the counter with long slender fingers, the same fingers he uses to push dirty white sleeves up and tie his hair back a moment later. He smiles at Hux with deep eyes, dark and expressive. They flicker as he grins. “You don’t look local,” he says.

Hux raises one ginger eyebrow. “This is a spaceport. Your point is?”

The young man’s eyes flicker again and he takes a sip from the brandy that has just been placed in front of him. “You need a mechanic,” he says. 

Hux is growing tired of this. “I suppose you want congratulations. You see a man with clothes far nicer than yours drinking away his troubles on this shitty planet and just assume he’s stuck?”

The young man grins, revealing very white and very crooked teeth. “No matter how I figured it, I am right.” Throwing back the rest of his brandy, he slams his glass on the counter. Hux is mildly impressed. “As it so happens,” the young man says, blinking at Hux, “I am a mechanic.”

“What can you fix?” Hux asks, turning slightly towards him.

A smile, much too knowing. “Anything. Even your  _ Upsilon  _ shuttle.”

Perhaps it’s the whiskey, or perhaps it’s the man’s umber eyes, or perhaps it’s something else. Either way, Hux should have seen the red flags. 

Needless to say, he doesn’t.

Hux stands from the table, leaving his glass of whiskey behind. “Hangar seven,” he says. “Find us at first light.” The man’s smile is dripping with cordiality, too much. Hux lunges forward, wrenches fingers in the other man’s dark shirt. “Word of this reaches  _ no one,”  _ he growls. “Do you hear me?”

Pale arms raise in mock surrender, slender fingers extending. The man grins again, dark hair escaping from where he’s tied it back to frame his face elegantly. “You’re the boss,” he says.

Hux lets him go and storms out. 

 

\----

 

When the Stormtroopers tell him it’s a hyperdrive issue, Hux curses under his breath. Of  _ course  _ it’s a hyperdrive issue, and of  _ course  _ they had to be stuck on some junky backwoods planet when it happened.  _ Kriffing hell, I hope that mechanic knows what he’s doing. If we need to buy a new hyperdrive, we’ll be stuck podracing for it.  _

A small Derkolo leads him to a grungy and overpriced room, whereupon he promptly locks the door and transmits a message to Snoke.  _ Supreme Leader, forgive me. There has been a delay. Our hyperdrive malfunctioned unexpectedly and we are trapped on the planetoid Kathna until we can get it repaired.  _ He doesn’t mention that Snoke explicitly told him to bring only normally programmed troopers, and that none of them know how to fix a ship whatsoever. 

With that, there is nothing to do but wait.

\-----

There’s not a decent cup of caf anywhere. Hux isn’t entirely surprised, though he is annoyed that he’s forced to settle for a cigarra. What he is surprised about is to see the dark haired mechanic, striding in exactly on time. Hux stands from his place in the shade to meet him. “I see you decided I was worth your time after all,” he says, flicking ash from his cigarra. 

The dark haired man hasn’t brought any tools with him. If Hux thinks it’s odd, he doesn’t comment on it. “What am I working with?”

“My crew tells me it’s a hyperdrive issue,”

Another flash of teeth. “So you’re a captain, then.”

Hux shrugs. “Of a sort.”

The dark haired man glances behind him, furtive, as if checking for something, and something about the motion seems wrong. Hux’s eyes narrow. He drops the cigarra to the ground, checking that the blaster he has hidden in his coat is not, in fact, set to stun. 

The dark haired man turns back after an instant, no trace of malice in his deep eyes. Hux lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding. “I’m sorry. I thought I heard someone I knew.” Another grin. Dark eyes flicker. “Where were we? Right. I was calling you a captain. I think the correct term is  _ General,  _ unless I’ve been mislead. _ ”  _

Hux reaches for his blaster and the second lasts an eternity, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Cold metal is pressed to his forehead. Time restarts.

“Now,” says Ben Solo, and why the  _ fuck _ hadn’t Hux recognized the son of the most infamous Resistance leader? “I think you and I have business to take care of.”


	2. part one--second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More is revealed. Hux makes a proposition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two came sooner than expected! Please enjoy! Any questions, comments, or feedback, leave 'em below!!
> 
> \--CM

 

Back on Arkanis, they’d run training sims. Hux was in the firing seat for the first few weeks, but then, of course, was moved up to what he wanted, exquisite command. He’d run them perfectly and would be the first person to ever do so, controlling his men to fire the lasers and the cannons on simulation X-Wing fighters. During some of those moments, he’d imagine that it was real, and that beside the X-Wings flew the junkiest ship in the galaxy, the most famous. He’d catch a glimpse of it, just a glimpse of the Millennium Falcon-- before incinerating it with the ventral cannons (his personal favorite).  _ Even a standard issue turbolaser would do at this point,  _ he thinks to himself.  _ Even if I’m dead because of it, than so is he and the galaxy will be all the better for it.  _

Ben’s vanished somewhere into the Falcon’s bowels, leaving Hux to think.  _ Oh, sweetheart,  _ he had said.  _ I may be scum, but who ever said I was a rebel?  _ Ben’s been trained well enough in the arts of war, but, having Han Solo as a father, one assumes certain breed characteristics shine through. Either way, Hux isn’t getting free of his own volition any time soon. The ropes around his wrists and ankles are achingly tight, and he wiggles his fingers uselessly, trying to keep blood flowing into them. His mind’s spinning with excuses to bring to Snoke, imagining what the Supreme Leader would say if his lie was too obvious. He would laugh, just before he would throw Hux out an airlock.  _ The great General Hux, trusting someone? We saw where this lead-- only to your failure.  _

Engines whir to life from somewhere distant, and Ben’s voice echoes through the ship. “Has anyone ever told you that you think too loudly?” he shouts. 

Hux raises an eyebrow. “What are you blathering on about?” he yells back, and musical laughter rumbles back towards him.

Ben doesn’t deign to answer, says instead:  “I’d say hold on, but I think that’s sort of redundant in this situation, don’t you?”  _ The gall of this one.  _ Hux grits his teeth and wills his brain to fire a comeback, but Ben continues. “You’ve got a while to go, so get comfortable,”

“Where are you dragging me to?” Hux shouts. More laughter. 

“Who would ever miss the chance to bring you in? Maybe Father’ll forgive me now,” laughs Ben, once, a great and tremendous  _ HA! _ It was a dark and low thing, that laugh, dipped in sadness.  _ Father won’t forgive me,  _ it seems to say.  _ Father will never love me _ . A moment and the laugh changes to something darker, but the sadness vanishes into something more malicious. “To see what they’ve got in store for you! Execution by firing squad? Desertion on an uninhabited planet? Even the trial will be momentous. General Hux, fiercest, youngest, mightiest of the First Order, laid low! And you snicker about the Resistance to your officers, to your captains and in your chambers alone at night. Who’s laughing now?”

He sounds, Hux realizes, positively mad. From all the rumors he’s heard, he’s not surprised. Whispers traveled around the Finalizer like floodgates opening. Gossip is one of the few privileges he allows his men, and though he turns a blind ear he still picks up tidbits occasionally.   _ To think we were scared of the Resistance,  _ remarks a trooper on patrol.  _ I was afraid once I heard that the Solo kid was going to that Jedi for training. Yeah, the Rebel guy, the guy that killed Vader. Well hear this, he refused to train the kid!  _ He hears Mitaka discussing it with Whitehall the next day.  _  That’s right! Skywalker just told him off because he’s afraid the kid’s going to turn out like Vader. Apparently the Solo kid was so angry about it that he went off, tried to shoot his father and then stole the Millennium Falcon. No, I don’t know where he went. Maybe we’ll catch him. _

Hux thought he had forgotten.  Dropping his head to stare at his scuffed leather boots, he sits, half awake behind a curtain of matted hair, for a few precious moments. He’s  _ tired.  _ No, screw that, he’s  _ exhausted.  _ When he works he can forget about it, instead being caught up in the never-ending adrenaline, the  _ go go go go  _ attitude, but when time stands still as it is then… He nearly falls asleep, before…

The ship whirs beneath him and pulls Hux sideways, sideways, only to throw him backward as the jump to lightspeed is made. “Next stop, your death,” yells Ben, cheerily, and just like that Hux is blindingly awake again. “And you should really stop thinking. You’re so noisy.”

“I haven’t said anything,” growls Hux back.

“You don’t need to,” comes the smooth reply. “I’m a Jedi.”

Hux lets a grin slide across his face as he realizes that for all Ben’s perceived power, he didn’t catch the one thing Hux had been thinking about for the last five minutes. He allows himself a second to revel before he piles a steep helping of acridity into his imagined words. “You’re not even a Padawan,” he states, and is pleased that the words sound as terrible as he’d hoped. “Luke rejected you. Your own father rejected you. You’re nothing more than a little boy trying to prove he’s good enough.”

There is silence as Hux’s words sink in, and silence a moment later, which Hux assumes to mean that Ren is speechless. He continues. “Do you hear me, Ben Solo?  _ You’re not good enough.  _ No one will ever accept you. Bringing me back won’t change  _ anything.  _ You’ll never be a hero, not like your parents. You told me you’re not a rebel, and you’re right. You’re not a rebel, you’re just a dog running back to his master.”

More silence, and then crashing footfalls. Hux sees Ben’s hand a moment before he’s yanked backwards by his hair. His scalp stings as Ben digs his fingers in. Looking into Ben’s face, Hux is surprised to see unconcealed rage. He’d expected sadness, remorse, weakness. 

Perhaps he miscalculated. Perhaps Ben Solo is more powerful than Hux originally thought. 

An instant ticks by, slowly, slowly, a second wherin Hux remembers that he, too, is a product of his upbringing. What was the one good thing Brendol Hux taught Armitage?  _ Never show weakness.  _ Discovered only afterward, when Hux wears black but does not cry. He stands over the grave of his father, the man who pushed him farther than he ever thought possible, pushing him in the form of screaming, cursing, more. In the summers, when the Academy on Arkanis wasn’t in session, bruises, split lips, cowering in fear of his father’s fist-- all commonplace in the Hux household. It got to be so that Hux would bear it in silence, knowing that what he had done the day before was wrong and it is only  _ more  _ want,  _ more  _ work,  _ more  _ desire to be the best the First Order has ever seen that will free him. 

So it is at the father’s funeral when the son, clever by nature but beaten into being dutiful, powerful, and ambitious beyond anything else, steels his heart and stitches up the last of the wounds. He wonders, for an instant, if his drive to be the youngest General, to be the best, to  _ rule…  _ he wonders if that was really at one point his dream, or if it was his father’s. 

By then, the wish is his. (And even if it wasn’t, he is too far gone to stop.)

_ Never show weakness. _

Hux returns to himself, and the menace above him. He has felt worse abuse than this pretender in front of him could ever inflict. He grits his teeth and fixes Ben Solo with his iciest stare. “I suggest you let me go _ ,  _ Solo,” he says, low and menacing.

For his credit, Ben Solo does not flinch. “I will let you go into Resistance hands, where you belong.”

This little gesture was so very familiar that it twinged. Despite the hatred, despite  _ everything,  _ Hux remained loyal to his family name unto the last. He suspected that somewhere within, Ben Solo was the same.

Ben’s grip on Hux’s hair grows tighter until he’s slamming the back of Hux’s head into the wall. Just as suddenly as the pain was inflicted then Ben lets him go, roughly. He stalks back the other direction and Hux waits until his footfalls have faded to think. 

\-----

It is just his luck, Ben tells Hux sarcastically, that he had to be on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Resistance base. He pops in, much, much later, to tell Hux this and to glare at him and then to mention that the trip will take five days, even at lightspeed.

 

He then asks Hux where he was going before Kathna. When Hux says nothing, Ben tries a Jedi mind trick, and then some other Force shit that doesn’t work. It only makes him look as if he is waving his hand threateningly in the air, which only makes Hux laugh at him. “You’re doing two things wrong,” Hux says. “First, I’m not weak minded. Second, you’re a terrible Force user.”

Ben cocks an eyebrow at him and for a moment forgets to be terrifying. “How do you know about the Force?” he asks.

“Unlike you, I actually know how to read,” Hux fires back. 

This riles Ben up again and he storms out of Hux’s sight in a flurry of dirty grey shirt and dark pants. He’s foregone the coat and Hux notices absurdly, also his shoes. Ben’s bare feet are gangly and very pale and very out of place stomping about on the dark floor. He withholds comment.

\-----

Time ticks by. Hux falls asleep but doesn’t realize he does until he is jerked awake. It is Ben, holding a grimy cup of something in front of him. His voice is low. “Science tells me that you’ll die of dehydration in three days if I don’t give you water. Much as I’d like to see you die, you’d be of no use to me then.”

Hux drinks, wincing at the acrid taste but swallowing as much as he can anyway. Then Ben is gone. 

\------

It takes him only a moment to see the solution, and when Hux does he knows that it could either save his hide or get him shot. He’s counting on Ben’s vulnerability, the fear of failure and the barely disguised rage in his taut shoulders, to stay alive. 

“Let me go,” Hux shouts, into the emptiness of the ship. 

It only takes a moment for a reply. Ben, from the cockpit. “Why would I do that? You’re a traitor, a liar, and a First Order sympathizer.”  
Hux considers his next words carefully. “I could say the same to you, Solo.”  
Finally, Ben is interested. He steps into Hux’s field of view a minute later and Hux takes in the dark hair, the fierce eyebrows, the doll lips, the constellations of moles. Ben says nothing, only crosses his arms. “You want to be trained,” he says. “You wish to learn the ways of the Force. Luke rejected you. You don’t need him. You don’t need the rebels. They will never truly see you, they will never truly understand you.”

“Let me go, and I will bring you to the most powerful man in the universe. Supreme Leader Snoke will see to it that you are trained.”


	3. part one-- third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter! Sorry this took so long-- life is extremely busy lately :(
> 
> Anyway, here you go! Enjoy!
> 
> \--CM

 

They descend towards D’Qar on the fifth day. Hux is suddenly glad for his bonds, for he’s sure he wouldn’t be able to stand up if he tried. His stomach twirls into knots, his throat is on fire, his eyelids are sticky and won’t seem to stay up.

Five days of starvation will do that to a person.

Ben eats in front of him, the bloody bastard, sets a juicy pear just out of Hux’s reach on the fourth day. “Beg for it,” he says, with a twist of a smile in his words. “Beg at my knees.”

He leans so near above Hux that his hair is tangling with Hux’s, and there’s no hint of anything other than barely concealed malice in that gaze. “Beg.”  
When Hux spits at him, nothing comes out, though Ben sees the effort and steps away, leaving the fruit where it is.

Hux wants to kill that boy.

Hux hears distant cheering as the Falcon comes in for the final descent, ragged clapping and hooting from outside. When Ben cuts the engines, it gets louder, and when Ben strides past Hux and throws the button for the opening, the roars are deafening. Feet pounding, a small, dark haired woman rushes up the ramp and gathers Ben into her arms. “My son,” she says, muffled into his shoulder. “You have returned to us.”

They hug for a long moment, and then the woman, whom Hux recognizes as Leia Organa, sees him and lets her son go. Her eyes narrow in scrupulous recognition. “General,” she says, inclining her head. The picture of politeness.

“I captured him,” says Ben, “and have brought him to you for trial.”  
A flash of pride flits across Leia’s face for a moment, before it is hidden behind a mask of professionalism. “Have you spoken to him? You know the punishment for affiliation with a First Order captive is death.” Ben is silent.  “I trust you have not spoken with him.”

Ben glances at Hux for just an instant, before hurriedly looking away and turning his dark eyes on his mother. “No, mother, I have not. I have not even deigned to look at him. He is one of the most notorious shit piles of First Order scum ever to shove his face above the dirt.” At that, Hux blinks, curiously, hearing his earlier comment to Ben thrown back at him. Ben pointedly doesn’t look at Hux, making a big show of his not noticing Hux’s remembrance. That, in Ben Solo terms, meant that he knew damn well Hux remembered, and wasn’t very good at hiding it. _Good. There’s some satisfaction._

Leia smiles, a mother lioness. “I am proud.”

Ben lazily unties Hux’s hands and feet, and watches with all the gangly languidity of a lion  cub on the prowl as Hux shakes his fingers out, watching the blood return to his pale skin. Then he’s in action, springing forward to force Hux’s arms behind his back and rip him to his feet. “You’re coming with me,” he growls, low. “You have no choice.”

Hux is coming with Ben. He has no choice.

When they step outside, the light is blinding. It is all Hux can do to not throw up. He’s aware that he’s making a grand fool out of himself, the _true_ picture of the First Order as he stumbles like a drunk, weak on his feet and pale as the first winter snow. People are gathered all around a landing platform, smiling and laughing, but all sound ceases when they see him. Hux feels a great swell of pride seeing hundreds of eyes staring at him in fear.

Then they begin to cheer again, loudly, raucously, as if they have already won the war against the First Order, and the bitter taste of disgust rips up Hux’s throat and bubbles from his lips in a sneer of contempt. _You fools don’t stand a chance,_ Hux thinks.

He is dragged into a hangar, passing rows upon rows of dirty TIE-fighters and stunned pilots, and through a door. Inside, a group of well-dressed people around a table stand in shock at the sight of him. One of them, an older man in a vest and white shirt, looks stricken and rushes from the room. _Was that Han Solo?_ Hux doesn’t have time to wonder, because Ben thrusts him down into a chair, roughly tying his hands behind his back and looming behind his chair. The circle of men in front of him watch him intently, raising their eyebrows, murmuring amongst themselves, but remain silent until Leia sits down at the head of the table. “Ben,” she says.

The cadence of Ben’s voice rumbles and hums against Hux’s back. “Yes, mother?”

“Is he fit to stand trial?”

Hux can’t keep his mouth shut. “ _He’s_ right here, you know.” Suddenly, a stinging pain. Ben has yanked him back by the hair, wrenching his head back until he’s looking up at Ben looming above him. Dark hair hanging down, so non-regulation, mingles with Hux’s own, tickling his face. Ben’s eyes are cold, cold, cold. “You do not speak unless you are spoken to, prisoner scum.” He puts on a good act. Hux complies, showing just enough fear and disgust to be convincing, and Ben lets him go. “The prisoner has not eaten since I scooped him up on Kathna five days ago.”

Leia looks as if she wants to smile, but does not. “Starvation makes one easier to break.” She considers for a moment, and then flicks her hand. “Take him to the cells. We will let him break for one more night and on the morrow, I will see to his trial personally.”

Ben nods, curt. “Yes, Mother.” Then he is wrenching Hux up to his feet, growling in his ear, “With me, dirt.”

Ben drags Hux out of the room with the others, through the hangar with its battered fleet and down a set of dark stairs into the bowels of the base. The smell of rot seeps into Hux’s nostrils and he grimaces, only doing so because he knows Ben can’t see. They walk for a long, long time in total and utter darkness until Ben stops abruptly, jerking Hux to a stop by his bound hands. There is a squeaky, grating noise which Hux assumes is a cell door opening, and then his bonds are cut and he is thrust inside, falling painfully to his knees on a hard and wet floor. When he tries to stand, his legs give way and he falls again, head spinning from lack of food. He feels nauseous and empty. The only thing he can see in the dark is the faint outline of Ben’s pale cheekbones and the glimmer of his eyes. He has a sudden, almost delirious urge to run his finger across a cheekbone, feel its knife edge under his palm.

He ignores this, feeling his head reel.

Ben stares at him for a moment, two moments, three, and then turns on his heel and walks away, slamming the rusty door shut behind him. Hux is left in darkness.

Eventually, he gropes about and finds a wall, doing all that he can to prop himself up against it and breathing heavily with the exertion. He sits. He waits. Hours pass, or maybe seconds, or maybe days. Water drips somewhere behind him and soaks his clothing. He waits. He falls asleep or maybe stays awake, drifting somewhere in delirium, tired mind humming over thoughts of Ben’s cheekbones and Mitaka’s wide eyes as he gave control of the _Finalizer_ over. He wonders over Ben’s choice, and wonders over the fate of the Stormtroopers he left on Kathna so many days before. He wonders if he has been marked missing, or if anyone is looking for him. He wonders is he will ever see the _Finalizer_ again, or help the First Order achieve the victory they deserve. He wonders if he will stand up to torture, or if he will break and tell the Resistance everything.

Many, many days later, or maybe hours, or maybe seconds, minutes, years, he hears footsteps. Approaching from so far away, getting closer and closer until his cell door is swinging open and Ben is standing above him. A mouthful of hard bread and a cup of something is given to him. As he groggily eats, Ben crosses his pale arms in the dark. In the half-light, his voice seems very far away. “We do not have much time.”

Hux swallows, attempts something close to biting wit, fails. “So you made up your mind.”

“Yes.”

“I thought I would be in the hands of the Resistance tomorrow, getting my brain picked for every little scrap I had,” Hux replies, as drily as he can manage.

“Worse,” Ben says. “You are in the hands of me.”

 _No,_ Hux thinks, as he shakily stands, coughs, stumbles from the cell. _The Supreme Leader is wise._


	4. part two-- first

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darkness. An escape is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahahaha y'all thought I forgot that Hux was actually starving to death
> 
> lol I did not

_ part two _

They slip out into the night. It is so black as if to be suffocating, but D’Qar doesn’t do its job well enough, the Resistance base seems to forget that Hux was born of darkness and of darkness he remains. Darkness does not suffocate him, his addled brain hums nothing but  _ free free free.  _

Motors begin to spin inside his head, making plans, formulating and reformulating how many days it would take them to return to the Finalizer, to return to Snoke, whether or not the Supreme Leader would ever accept his excuse for being late as a valid one, whether or not Ben Solo really believed that he had control over Hux, whether or not Ben Solo really believed that he would simply be trained and then walk out as a free man. He opens his mouth to speak and his voice comes out as a dry rasp. “I do hope that you aren’t going to starve me any more,” he says, and it doesn’t come out like he had intended. His legs burn and he slips, nearly falling, until Ben catches him with a solid arm around his waist. The warmth slowly spreads through him as he rights himself weakly. 

Ben scoffs, but says nothing. 

As the darkness swallows the two figures running away, one haggard as a vagrant and the other solid as a stone, a General awakes in another room. She’s not sure why she is awake, but something about the silence feels pregnant, somehow. Alive. 

She draws on a robe as she steps out of bed, commanding her lights to the dimmest setting. Nothing is out of place. 

She flips open her comm and buzzes the sentry. Nothing is out of place.

She looks out her dirty glass window, one of the only rooms in the Base with one, into the deep darkness. Nothing is out of place.

Nothing is out of place.

A ship whirs to life. From her rooms, she can see into one of the hangars, and the unmistakable glow of a ship’s floodlights has just illuminated the landing strip in a blinding glow. Hastiness and inexperience and arrogance crowds to the front of her mind; whoever it is in the pilot’s chair is either very stupid or very smart. She squints towards it. Something does not feel right. Which ship is it? Are there any registered departures?

Suddenly, her comm buzzes. She picks it up in an instant. It’s the prison guard. “Mum, the cells are empty. He’s gone.”

Another glimpse at the floodlights, brighter now as the engines hum with warmth. Why hadn’t she recognized the outline before?

Something is out of place. 

She yanks open her door and begins to run. 

\----

The instant Hux sinks into the seat he’d been so rudely tied into for the few days prior, he is dragged back up again. “I need a co-pilot,” growls Ben. 

“Why are you assuming I can fly this?” asks Hux, even though a YT Model Corellian Freighter such as this is child’s play to him. Ben gives him a look. “Next question, you got along well enough without someone on the bloody way here! Why now?”

“Because unless you have a death wish, we need the shields up. We need a gunner. We need someone to  _ punch the kriffing buttons!  _ Now, get in the seat or I  _ swear  _ I will throw you off this ship!”

Hux nearly laughs at the childlike tone Ben is using, as if he’s tantruming to get his way. Ben glares at him and Hux glares back, wins, accepts Ben’s defeat in the form of dark eyes, downcast. “That’s not going to work on me, sweetheart. However, unlike you seem to think, I do not have a death wish. What do you need me to do?”

\----

Even before she’s out of her door, Leia is yelling into the comms for the squadron, yanking the alarm in the hall. She sprints down the hall and barely notices when the alarms scream to life, slamming the lights to emergency red, the doors to open, and the klaxons to full blare. Tired cadets are scrambling from their rooms, rushing outside, and she is ahead of all of them, only one thought in her mind,  _ my son my son my son.  _

The comm buzzes. It’s Han and he’s yelling and she yells back and then she’s down the stairs and then she is outside into the night and it is only then that she realizes that she is barefoot but she continues, she’s sprinting now, going as fast as she can because if she can catch the Falcon, she can save him, she can bring him back, she can execute Hux and bring the First Order crumbling down, she can save him, she can save him.

She is nearly to the ship when it leaps forward, a racehorse only now unchained. For a moment, she catches a glimpse of the cockpit and it is her son behind the helm, dark hair a wild cloud, and the red-haired General beside him. Ben looks down, catches her eye for just a moment, before the ship jumps to lightspeed and is gone. 

It is the cruelest thing. 

It is the cruelest thing to know that Ben could have taken off minutes before.

It is the cruelest thing to know that he waited. 

It is the cruelest thing to know that he waited for her to see, and abandoned her all the same.

She sinks to the ground. Dimly, she hears the boots of the squadron behind her, Resistance pilots rushing in a moment too late. Dimly, she feels a hand supporting her, probably Han’s but she does not know. 

Leia has been strong her entire life. She has been a military commander and she has been unfeeling and she has not shown emotion.

It is not so now. In front of everyone, she cries.

\----

Just after takeoff, Hux collapses. He doesn’t realize he is doing it until the roof swims above him, all the lights of the cockpit blinking pleasantly. Then he realizes that he is on the floor. Then he realizes how weak he feels. Then he realizes that he can’t stand.  _ That idiot boy and his punishments,  _ he thinks.  _ When I get up, I will get some food. Then I will feel better.  _ He glances at Ben, who glances back at him.  _ He’s pretty,  _ his addled brain supplies.  _ You think that he is pretty. _

He thinks he is falling asleep, but really he is closer to death than he has ever been.

\----

Ben breathes a sigh of relief as the Falcon jumps into hyperspace. Finally,  _ finally,  _ he will be trained.  _ That mongrel Hux thinks he has all the power. He does not realize that I will be controlling him. I will be controlling my master. I will be taking my knowledge with me.  _

A loud crash makes his head whip around. Hux is on the floor, blinking hazily and uncomprehendingly at the roof of the cockpit. The skin around his eyes is tight, deathly white. Ginger freckles are nearly bleached. Hux mumbles something unintelligible, and then shuts his eyes. 

_ Kriffing hell.  _ Ben reaches out with his limited knowledge of the force, stretching into Hux’s mind, to find that the other man is dying.  _ Kriffing. Hell.  _ Part of him wants to abandon the General to die on the next moon, but the rest of him knows that this won’t win him any favors with his new master.  _ I’m sorry, Master. He was badly injured in our escape. He didn’t make it. _

When he realizes that he doesn’t even know where they are going, and that Hux will be dead within the hour if he doesn’t do anything, he is dropping the ship out of hyperspace in an instant and swooping down for a landing on the first moon he sees. 


End file.
